Knog Party Frank lock

"The timeless pick-up line, 'Hey lady, you make me wanna wrap my sausage round a pole!' is as debonair as it is disarmingly effective. The Party Frank is that sausage wrapped around that pole 24-7 and it wants all the ladies to know that nothing's gunna break its hold". So says the Knog website of this silicone-coated cable lock, and the packaging suggests that you can trust it to keep your bike safe at the train station or other medium risk environments. And can you? No, in a word.

I wouldn't trust any light weight cable lock to keep my bike safe at the station or anywhere else it was going to be left unattended for long periods, in my experience none of them are up to that particular job. It also has to be said that many British railway stations are probably somewhat closer to a war zone than the corner shop - London Bridge station was the hottest of bike theft hotspots in an admittedly not very scientific insurance company survey on bike theft last year.

Knog have done a bit of lateral thinking for their cable lock range, including some microfilaments inside the cable in the hope that it will make them more resistant to bolt cutter attack. When it comes to the Party Frank It's a vain hope, sadly: the test model took one look at our 30" chopper (sorry, went all Knog website there for a minute) and put up a paltry 20 seconds of resistance. To be fair Knog aren't claiming that the Party Frank is any sort of maximum security device. They give it a security rating of 3/10 but unfortunately even that's being generous. I'd give it a 1/10.

You wouldn't need croppers as big as ours to make mincemeat of this lock, It's just not very strong. If you're desperate for a silicone-covered lock in a gaudy colour then one of the beefier Knog units might turn a trick down the train station, as it were. But I wouldn't rely on this.

Verdict

Pretty, but not up to the job.

road.cc test report

Make and model: Knog Party Frank lock

Size tested: Gold

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

Dave is a founding father of road.cc and responsible for kicking the server when it breaks. In a previous life he was a graphic designer but he's also a three-time Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling world champion, and remains unbeaten through the bog. Dave rides all sorts of bikes but tends to prefer metal ones. He's getting old is why.

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